Gubernatorial Candidate Steve Hilton Exposes ‘Xavier Becerra’s Migrant Child Abuse Camps’

Gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton and Lieutenant Governor candidate Gloria Romero today released explosive whistleblower testimony at a press conference alleging that, under Xavier Becerra’s watch, migrant children at the Pomona Fairplex were rushed out the door, handed to adults using fraudulent identification, separated from their siblings, and abandoned by a system that failed to determine where they ended up or whether they were safe. Joining the conference were investigative journalist Anthony Rubin, journalist Jorge Ventura, and Chris Clem, former Chief Patrol Agent of the U.S. Border Patrol’s Yuma Section.

The newly released evidence brief expands on those allegations, pairing the former caseworker’s firsthand account from the Pomona Fairplex facility with Department of Justice filings, inspector general reports, grand jury findings, and published reporting that document broader concerns involving sponsor vetting, child welfare, abuse allegations, and oversight failures within the federal unaccompanied minors program.

“As U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra was the legal custodian of every unaccompanied migrant child held in an HHS shelter. Inside those shelters — facilities he stood up, funded, and defended — children as young as five years old were sexually abused by the government’s own contractors,” the new brief found. The report, released by the Steve Hilton campaign, out lines the horrid conditions migrant children were subjected to, including sexual abuse, separation from family and siblings, and sex trafficking.

“Children were fed bloody chicken and expired milk, given water declared unfit to drink, denied medicine while staff “laughed,” kept in unwashed bedding for months, driven to self-harm and thoughts of suicide — and two children died in HHS custody in 2023,” the report found.

More "Becerra Tapes" still to come. pic.twitter.com/qveYjXPR86

— Steve Hilton (@SteveHiltonx) July 27, 2026

“Children were moved in the middle of the night – always the middle of the night,” Hilton said. “They were smuggled in the middle of the night.”

The Globe watched the interviews (exclusive video clips and listed below) and heard descriptions of the conditions, by the former caseworker who described what she witnessed as widespread failures in the handling and placement of unaccompanied migrant children, including inadequate sponsor verification and the acceptance of fraudulent identification documents.

Children were raped, sex trafficked, used for unpaid labor, smuggled, and forced to live in warehouses in filth – unclean bedding, fed rotten and spoiled food, and confined to their beds. Multiple Children were sent to a single address which turned out to be a shipping container.

Gloria Romero noted that the Pomona Fairplex, during WWII was a temporary Detention Camp for Japanese Americans during World War II.

Investigative Journalist Anthony Rubin reported that they tracked down two siblings who were sent to a labor trafficking ring in Florida – they were sold into debt servitude. It was reported to Becerra, Rubin said, but nothing was done about it.

HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) takes custody of unaccompanied alien children (UACs) after Border Patrol encounters, shelters them, vets potential sponsors, and releases them, Fox News reported in 2023.

After release, ORR policy includes attempting safety and well-being phone calls – typically trying the child and sponsor multiple times about 30 days later. The New York Times found the agency failed to make contact with more than 85,000. Becerra publicly stated he was unfamiliar with the 85,000 figure when first asked in 2023 Senate testimony, called it unrealistic, and later repeatedly denied that children were “lost,” arguing that sponsors and/or children are not required to answer calls, that non-response does not equal disappearance, and that HHS’s formal custodial responsibility ends upon release to a vetted sponsor.

Around 85,000 unaccompanied migrant children could not be reached by HHS for post-release safety or well-being follow-up calls during Xavier Becerra’s tenure as HHS Secretary (primarily referenced for the roughly 2021–2022 period covered by reporting), according to the New York Times. 

But Hilton said that number isn’t accurate. The accurate number is 479,000 unaccompanied migrant children – “And of that 479,000 unaccompanied migrant children, Becerra lost 319,000 unaccompanied migrant children. There are 140,000 still missing, most under age 13… still missing after years of Becerra’s migrant abuse camps.”

Xavier Becerra turned HHS into the largest child trafficking operation in history,” Hilton added.

“Every single one of those children were Becerra’s responsibility,” Hilton said. “319,000 children were lost – are missing – to save Becerra’s face.”

“I don’t know how he has the nerve to run for public office – any public office, let alone Governor of California.”

DHS Office of Inspector General findings covering multi-year periods: ICE transferred hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied alien children to HHS – 448,000 in FYs 2019–2023 – with large numbers lacking Notices to Appear and/or immigration court dates. It has been reported that around 291,000 as of mid-2024 in one summary, and approximately 32,000 failing to appear for scheduled hearings.

Hilton said the whistleblower further described federal officials prioritizing moving children through the system quickly rather than ensuring their safety. She claimed that staff were instructed to process placements despite concerns and told that their role was to reunify children with sponsors, not investigate the people receiving them.

“What we heard today is heartbreaking,” Hilton said. “This isn’t about politics. It’s about children. If these allegations are true, vulnerable kids were handed over to people who were never properly vetted, warning signs were ignored, and basic safeguards that any parent would expect simply weren’t there.”

The press conference featured testimony regarding two young sisters who entered the facility together but were later separated. The whistleblower recounted the story of a five-year-old girl named Grace who repeatedly asked where her seven-year-old sister had been taken. The former worker said she never learned whether the sisters were reunited after leaving the facility because no follow-up welfare checks occurred.

Testimony presented at the press conference alleged that children were released to sponsors using fraudulent or unverified identification, often without adequate vetting or follow-up welfare checks. Witness accounts described a facility where children lacked privacy when reporting abuse and where staff who reported sexual harassment incidents were terminated. According to the testimony, those failures placed vulnerable children in unsafe situations and allowed too many to slip through the cracks of a system with little accountability.

“Common sense tells us that when children are involved, safety comes first,” Hilton said. “The public deserves the truth about what happened at this facility under Xavier Becerra’s watch, why these decisions were made, and why obvious red flags were ignored. These children deserved protection. Californians deserve answers.”

“The children are out there and we must find them,” Gloria Romero said.

“After meeting with more than 140 individuals from DHS and other Federal agencies, we determined U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) cannot effectively monitor the location and status of all unaccompanied alien children (UACs) once released or transferred from Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) custody,” the OIG report said.

These are the videos journalist Anthony Rubin conducted with the whistleblower:

1. The Conditions That Made Exploitation Possible: https://vimeo.com/1213304657/ee6ec80f6e?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci

2. Two Girls, Ages Five and Seven, Were Separated: https://vimeo.com/1213124436/427e7e5c6a?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci

3. Sexual Abuse and Harassment Inside Facilities: https://vimeo.com/1213153503/4a01e9ee7e?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci

4. Reported Change in Sex Trafficking in Pomona: https://vimeo.com/1213133692/c0f5d7b604?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci